Sales video mines pop culture, humor & music to “Catch the Wave”

In summary Creative Director Bill Cokas called on his long-dormant karaoke talents to perform the theme songs to both “The Love Boat” and “Gilligan’s Island,” which became, respectively, “The Love Mark” and “BSI Isle.”

If you need an entertaining corporate video, you’ve come to the right place. Using a combination of music, parody and internal industry humor, Strategic Insights, a full-service marketing and web services agency located in Wake Forest, N.C., provided British Standards International (BSI) with a video designed to invigorate its sales and marketing teams for 2013. With the theme “Catch the Wave,” the video delivered a series of instructional and inspirational messages, yet surrounded them with entertainment. This is the second such effort Strategic Insights has provided to BSI.

“The video went over amazingly,” said Karla Lawson, E-Business Director at BSI. “The entertainment portion had to be played twice, because people were laughing so hard that they missed some parts. There was even a round of applause at the end.”

BSI approached Strategic Insights with an initial collection of TV theme song ideas, commercial parodies (such as Snickers, eTrade and Dos Equis) and the theme of “Catch the Wave,” as the sales conference was being held on the coast of Florida. To give the whole video more structure and unity, the S.I. team suggested wrapping the concept up in the notion of a TV “network” of sorts called “BSI-TV.” As the video played, an unseen hand would be “changing the channels,” thus providing a reason to jump from one concept to another without need for transitions.

Working with longtime collaborator, Whistle Corps composer Mike Sottong in Charlottesville, VA, Creative Director Bill Cokas called on his long-dormant karaoke talents to perform the theme songs to both “The Love Boat” and “Gilligan’s Island,” which became, respectively, “The Love Mark” and “BSI Isle.” Strategic Insights Associate Creative Director Chris Griffin designed highly effective and detailed title sequences and special effects for the video.

“These projects are incredibly fun and fulfilling,” said Cokas, “and the only frustrating thing is that—as an internal corporate piece–so relatively few people get to see the finished product. Still, I’m tremendously grateful to Karla and BSI editor Nicholas Messiah for their generosity and senses of humor throughout the project.” While reluctant to post the video publicly, Cokas can arrange private screenings for interested parties.

Lawson added, “Strategic Insights is able to translate both abstract concepts and detailed requirements into a polished creative product that wows us every time. The final product was professional, tasteful, and hilarious communicating key points to our team, putting them at ease, and raising expectations for the next year. The Strategic Insights team is a joy to work with and we look forward to working with them for years to come.”